The Lost

PART 3- The Forest

Azure

It was hot in Lucius' pocket. Hot and dark, but strangely not uncomfortable. Somehow, it felt quite safe, as though we were shielded by his hand and his clothes. How funny. I had never imagined feeling safe in the hand of a human. But the boy held his hand so steady and kept the fabric walls away from us as he walked. You could hardly call the huge compartment in the front of his jumper a pocket, it was more like a woolly cave. He never once jolted his hand around without an immediate apology, never tried to push his fingers close to me or Aspen. Being in his hand was the most peculiar sense of calm I had ever felt. Everything outside of the forest was so unnaturally big compared to us... and Lucius was huge too. But, in a weird way, having someone like him hold us steady and safe made me feel steady and safe.
Being here like this made me think of drinking warm blackberry juice with Aspen, the two of us up in the landing hole in the Hollow, nestled under his huge fur blankets and watching rain lash at the world outside. I had been warm then too. So warm and so calm. Even though thunder was rocking the tree and rain was ripping through the leaves just outside, the juice had made my throat feel all fuzzy, and I had felt protected.

I felt like that now. Protected.

The four of us were in the dark for a while. Lyn was on my right, Aspen on my left, both of them leaning into me and sticking to my arms. It seemed they were both freaked out for different reasons. Lyn mostly kept her face pressed onto my arm and tried to breathe in slow, full breaths— the poor girl didn't at all like being in small spaces. And Az... I could soothe Lyn a little by whispering to her, asking her about silly things to take her mind off of the pocket, but Aspen's fear was something I couldn't help. His green eyes that I adored so much were permanently fixed to the nearby fingers. Even if I murmured things in his ears he didn't turn; a nod or a little one-word answer was the best I got. Aspen just watched and watched Lucius' nails with a sick, unblinking fixation. It made my own eyes want to water. Maybe with tears. Aspen.
Rosin was obviously off on her own in the corner of Lucius' hand with her knees pulled to her chest. She wanted nothing to do with us. She wouldn't even look at me. And it hurt, honestly. The knowledge that she couldn't wait to get home and be rid of us after I had spent so long as a child waiting for her to come back. I was gazing absently at the chunk out of her shoulder when the boy suddenly spoke.

"Hold on guys. Almost there."
The words ran through me. He wasn't whispering, so I assumed that there weren't many, if any, humans around. Thank gods. That was good. The thought of any human but Lucius made my skin crawl. Another few minutes and I got to see the outside for myself.

The light was totally blinding when he carefully slipped his hand out of his pocket. The thing that hit me first was the air. Even blinded, I could feel the cool sky roll over my skin and hair, through the folds of my wings. I felt Lyn and heard Aspen as they each shifted off me and inhaled. Opening my eyes was a bliss I had never known.

"Please tell me this is the right place," he was starting, "Cause if-"
"Oh my gods..." I breathed. The blurry spots in my eyes were already fading as I adjusted to the low sun. It didn't seem real. Forgetting Aspen for just a moment, I clambered to the edge of the hand and clutched his fingers, staring at the wonders that were now in front of me. The trees, the sky, the limitless air. The ground below was concrete, but it was bathed in sunlight and scattered with lumps of dry dirt. There were cracks in places where little weeds forced their way through and up. A few paces on was where the floor crumbled away. What replaced it was the ground. Earth. The colour so familiar to us— that deep brown of dirt and soil, roots and trees. The forest. How long since we were carried away from here? I could have cried.